JERUSALEM - 4 March 2008 - 590 words
Caritas
Jerusalem mourns with people of Gaza
This letter has just arrived from the Caritas office in Jerusalem:
Dear friends,
Caritas Jerusalem mourns with the people of Gaza at this terrible
time.
According to the current situation in Gaza after 6 days of Israeli
military attacks, 118 Palestinians have been killed and more than
300 injured, among them 19 children killed and 25 children injured.
At this time, we are working through our medical centre to respond
as best as we can to the unfathomable situation in Gaza. Our six
medical points are active and working. For example, a doctor is
working in a medical point in Beit Hanoun in Northern Gaza responding
to urgent medical cases with our assistance.
In Southern Gaza, we have a medical point positioned in Al Breij
camp and it has been helpful in responding to the situation there,
but our main medical team from our main medical center hoped to
travel to that area, but the present circumstances are too dangerous.
While we have a mobile medical clinic in Gaza, our mobile clinic
is not an ambulance and as such does not have the distinguishing
markings of an ambulance and risks being targeted from the air
at this time.
Moving around in Gaza is exceedingly dangerous. We understand
that even ambulances moving around are not safe.
Last year, Caritas Jerusalem provided 23 emergency medical bags
to 23 doctors throughout Gaza. These bags have been very helpful
in responding to urgent medical emergencies by the doctors who
received them.
We have coordinated with other organizations to respond to the
urgent calls for blood and have done our best to respond to calls
from blood banks for urgent donations.
Currently, Caritas Jerusalem is communicating as best as we can
with other agencies to attempt to coordinate an entry of medicines,
gauze, medicinal alcohol for wound dressing, bandages, etc. into
Gaza at this time to respond to urgent requests that we have received
from our partners and hospitals in Gaza for the same.
We are also coordinating with other agencies concerning the need
to provide urgent food provision to vulnerable communities cut
off from food supplies and isolated due to the ongoing military
actions.
We understand that military actions are still ongoing with some
10 persons killed yesterday. We have noted in the Al Breij region
that while withdrawal from the area has taken place, the withdrawal
was to a point only 2-3 kilometers away, so military actions continue.
We will bring the latest developments of the situation there as
we receive more information from our colleagues working there.
A story of one family from Gaza follows here.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=960235
'We thought you wanted peace,' says father of slain Gaza
sisters
By Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz Correspondent
A day after the Asliyeh sisters, Samah, 13, and Salwa, 18, were killed in an Israel Air Force bombing, their grandfather, Mohammed, was hospitalized Sunday. His blood pressure rose and his sons were afraid he would collapse.
The horrifying images of the girls' charred bodies were broadcast over and over Saturday on Al Jazeera, and Mohammed found himself the unwilling center of Arab and Palestinian media attention. TV cameras were rolling when he and his wife, the girls' grandmother, reached the smoke-filled room, minutes after the blast, and were pushed back by the men inside to keep them from seeing the terrible sight.
A mourners' tent was set up near the family's
home in the Tel al-Zaatar neighborhood. The guests' condolences,
spoken through a microphone, can be heard over the phone, as well
as distant blasts from the ongoing battles between Israeli troops
and Palestinian gunmen.
The father, Zidan, 42, still cannot digest what happened. For
years he lived there with his 12 children, next door to his brother
Diab's family. They had almost no trouble. Diab even has a work
permit for Israel (which he can expect to lose, now that he is
in the category of those whose relatives were killed by the Israel
Defense Forces). Like many of his relatives, Zidan used to work
on the other side of the border, and still has many Jewish acquaintances.
"Plasterer. That was my profession by you, in Rehovot, in Ashkelon. I always thought you wanted peace, but what did you do? What did you do?! You slaughtered my two girls," he says.
He bursts into tears. Salwa had begun medical school this year and dreamed of becoming a doctor. Samah stayed home from school because of the situation.
Zidan and his wife were away from home, in Jabalya, when it happened. "We heard there was a blast around where we live. Then I got a phone call from my sisters, who told me, 'Come quick, they bombed the house and your two daughters were killed.' I saw their bodies when I arrived. What can I tell you? It's horrific."
He describes the sight in detail, then says: "Did they shoot at anyone? Where they armed? Jewish friends from Israel telephoned me with condolences, but the Jews bombed us when the girls were sitting at home. It's inconceivable."
Zidan's brother describes the events: "We kept hearing planes in the air and tanks, so we decided to bring the whole family, mine and Zidan's, down to the courtyard between the two houses, where we felt safer. But the two girls took too long upstairs. We heard a first 'boom' when a missile landed near the house, followed by a second missile that hit the bedroom window."
He ran upstairs and saw the carnage. "I shouted, 'Samah, Samah,' but there was only severed limbs. If you had seen the sight you would've wept. The missile burned everything there."
Diab, a former volunteer with Magen David
Adom in Ashkelon, cannot grasp what happened. "There are
no gunmen here. We wouldn't let them near. There are more than
20 children here. We don't want trouble and don't like it, but
why did they shoot at us? What did we do to deserve this?"
Source: Caritas Jerusalem
www.caritasjr.org
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